Summary

In chapter one, the narrator, David, asks the reader if he or she knows pain. He mentions his second wife was attacked by cats, and thinks she knows pain. His first wife was in a car accident where her lover was skinned alive. He thinks she is closer to understanding pain. He admits he and "the others" were just kids when they met Meg and Susan Loughlin, and reminds himself it was the fifties, when everything was secretive. He is now forty-one, with two failed marriages and no children. He is well-off, but admits he has not been right since the summer of 1958.

In chapter two, David Moran is at the Rock along the stream, catching crayfish when beautiful sixteen-year-old Meg arrives. She helps him catch crayfish and explains she is from New York. The two get along well, and Meg amazes David with...